The casting team  at the Hengdian Film & TV Festival Photo: VCG

Featuring events such as a "global film marketing fair" aimed at engaging overseas studios like Universal Studios, the 2024 Hengdian Film & TV Festival of China opened on Sunday. Located in Zhejiang Province, Hengdian in Jinhua city boasts China's first national-level film and television industry experimental zone.  

On Monday, the festival's global film promotional fair is launched. A total of 160 domestic and international productions, including films with hot IPs such as Creation of the Gods, the Harry Potter series, and Walt Disney Picture's Moana, will be showcased. 

Including Disney, the event will be attended by international film houses such as Legendary Pictures, Sony Pictures and so forth. More than 100 new domestic films across genres, including action and sci-fi, will be introduced through promotional activities by Chinese firms such as the China Film Group Corporation. 

Noting Hengdian's local resources are "highly intriguing to international studios," Liu Xiaohong, a representative of the Hengdian Group, told the Global Times that the fair's goal is to "establish collaborative intentions" between domestic and overseas studios. Taking Zhang Yimou's film Article 20 as an example, it was one of the few Chinese films to be widely screened in countries and regions like North America, New Zealand and Australia. 

At the 2023 session of the festival, a similar event, the First China Film Fair, was launched. The fair helped the production and the distribution companies behind 24 domestic films to sign cooperative agreements. Featuring Oscar-shortlisted documentary Hidden Letters, these 24 films are set to be distributed under "split distribution" schemes, which means they will be screened at different cinemas for varying lengths. Such an arrangement is more flexible and market-oriented.  

Other than solely focusing on film and TV productions, the 2024 festival has established a new alliance that focuses on promoting Chinese short dramas overseas. 

According to iiMedia Research, the domestic short drama market reached 37.39 billion yuan ($5.25 billion) in 2023, and this number is expected to exceed 100 billion yuan by 2027. The Chinese online short drama app ReelShort, which targets North American viewers, has been downloaded around 19 million times so far in 2024. 

Relying on short drama's time-saving strength and its bank of inspiration, the Chinese online literature industry, the newly founded alliance aims to become a "production factory" of short dramas that integrate domestic short drama production companies, IP content providers and investors, Liu told the Global Times. 

"'Going global' has also become a new direction for development. Hengdian, with its strong ability to integrate film and television industry resources, plays a key role in this regard," Liu noted. 

Over 20 years, the film and television industry experimental zone in Hengdian has hosted nearly 490 filming crews and over 2,100 enterprises to have joined the zone. This dream factory for film has become not only a dense industry cluster, but also a hot tourist destination. 

Taking Hengdian's most iconic spot Qinwanggong, also known as "the palace for the King of Qin," as an example, several interactive activities have been launched over the years to engage visitors in role playing in ancient times. Coffee and restaurants that carry Cantonese cultural aesthetics can also been seen at Hengdian's Guangzhou and Hong Kong street settings. 

"I came to shoot pictures of myself wearing Qin Dynasty [221BC-206BC] costumes in Hengdian. Compared to other places, the makeup and styling in Hengdian are noticeably more refined," said one visitor, Chen Hong. 

The 2024 Hengdian Film & TV Festival of China is scheduled to end on Wednesday. Other events included in the festival are the WenRong TV Awards and the inauguration of China's first association for performing arts agencies.